HARDINSBURG, Ky. — Fourth graders in Breckinridge County, Ky. recently attended an event related to September being national Farm Safety Month.

The annual event is a part of the Progressive Agriculture Foundation’s Safety Day program and is at the county fairgrounds in this Western Kentucky community.

Carol Hinton, the county extension agent for agriculture and local Progressive Agriculture Farm Safety coordinator, said the point of the event is to bring awareness to students about the need to be safe on the farm, in the home or wherever they may be. “Anything from ATV safety to small hand tools, even disaster preparedness, we try to bring this into every home and give something that will help every child that’s out here,” she said.

Bringing this awareness to the community has proven to be invaluable because of the staggering statistics related to accidents involving children on the farm.

According to information provided by the National Children’s Center for Rural and Agricultural Health and Safety, every three days a child dies due to an agriculture-related accident; and every day, 38 children are hurt in ag-related incidents.

Hinton said one of the reasons fourth graders are picked to participate is because part of the school system’s testing centers around common sense practices.

“We actually iterate some of those practices, whether it’s to call 911 or where to go for help, into the curriculum here today so that it will satisfy what the fourth grade teachers are trying to do at their school,” she said.

The Hardinsburg Farm Safety Day has been in existence since 1997 and has more than doubled in size since its beginning. High school students helped get the younger children around as well as lead demonstrations.

This year’s event offered more than 10 stations teaching a variety of ways to stay safe. Topics included meth awareness, gun safety, how to tell the difference between candy and medicine, lawn mower and water safety and “agrability,” in which FFA members helped students realize how difficult it is to do farm chores after suffering an injury or having a disability.

Bridgette Shartzer, the HOSA Future Healthcare Professions organization advisor at the Breckinridge County Area Technology Center (ATC), helped some of her health sciences students to lead a couple of health-related demonstrations. They also helped the fourth graders from station to station during Farm Safety Day.

She said the health care students have been assisting with the event for the past six years. This year’s group taught children about dangerous drugs that can be confused for candy. They also discussed gun safety. “In our program we use examples about things like Gummy Bears and how they are considered candy but there are also vitamins that now look the same. If they are setting on a table together, it’s hard to know which is which,” she said. “We’re trying to teach the students to ask their parents before they take something to make sure it is safe.”

This year the entire ATC’s Medicaid Nurse’s Aide class came to Farm Safety Day with half doing the demonstrations and the other half serving as group leaders.

In addition to teaching the younger students, the health sciences students are learning about the importance of community service, a common theme among the many high school Career and Technical Student Organizations.

Shartzer said her students are involved in several community projects both health-related and otherwise.

“If students learn now that they can get out and do something beneficial for other people, they will continue to do so throughout their lifetime,” she said. “If you start it and establish it even with young children and show them they can do great things, they’re going to keep on doing it. Responsibility and being a good community leader are things I try to instill in my students, if nothing else.”

To learn more about the Progressive Agriculture Foundation and Farm Safety Days, go to their website at www.progressiveag.org